reformat to resell

[dubs83]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to sell my macbook air, but want to be 100% certain everything is off it. I've already backed up what I need so do I just need to do a fresh install of the OS so it will wipe everything clean and be ready to sell? If so, how do I do that?

thanks!

 

[Audit13]

Boot into internet recovery, use disk utility to erase the drive, and reinstall the os.

 

[jdogg836]

Boot into internet recovery, use disk utility to erase the drive, and reinstall the os.

Yup, this is correct. OP, do not forget to format the drive. This is not a Windows machine, if you just reinstall the OS you will leave the user data intact.

 

[NoBoMac]

Was FileVault turned on? If so, just reformat and reinstall. Since FileVault is full disk encryption, the install will wipe the encryption keys and make what's on the drive inaccessible. And if the drive in the Air is an SSD, the erase is not guaranteed to be complete.

Or, can turn on FileVault, then reformat, reinstall. But if drive is an HDD, and depending on size, might take a while to complete the encryption.

 

[chrfr]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to sell my macbook air, but want to be 100% certain everything is off it. I've already backed up what I need so do I just need to do a fresh install of the OS so it will wipe everything clean and be ready to sell? If so, how do I do that?

thanks!

Apple has a useful document for this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065